no harm. You
seem to me quite frantic for immediate work; but teach yourself quiet
and repose in the time you are waiting. With half your strength I
could bear to wait and labor with myself to conquer _fretting_. The
greatest power in the world is shown in conquest over self. More life
will be worked out of you by fretting than all the stage-playing in
the world. God bless you, my poor child. You have indeed trouble
enough; but you have a strong and earnest spirit, and you have the
true religion of labor in your heart. Therefore I have no fears for
you let what will come. Let me hear from you at your leisure, and be
sure you have no warmer friend than I am and wish to be."

RACHEL

By DUTTON COOK

(1821-1858)

[Illustration: Rachel.]

It is told that Rachel Felix was born on March 24, 1821, at Munf, near
the town of Aarau, in the Canton of Aargau, Switzerland; the
burgomaster of the district simply noting in his books that upon the
day stated, at the little village inn, the wife of a poor pedler had
given birth to a female child. The entry included no mention of
family, name, or religion, and otherwise the event was not registered
in any civil or religious record. The father and mother were Abraham
Felix, a Jew, born in Metz, but of German origin, and Esther Haya, his
wife. They had wandered about the continent during many years, seeking
a living and scarcely finding it. Several children were born to them
by the wayside, as it were, on their journeyings hither and thither:
Sarah in Germany, Rebecca in Lyons, Dinah in Paris, Rachel in
Switzerland; and there were other infants who did not long survive
their birth, succumbing to the austerities of the state of life to
which they had been called. For a time, perhaps because of their
numerous progeny, M. and Madame Felix settled in Lyons. Madame Felix
opened a small shop and dealt in second-hand clothes; M. Felix gave
lessons in German to the very few pupils he could obtain. About 1830
the family moved to Paris. They were still miserably poor. The
children Sarah and Rachel, usually carrying a smaller child in their
arms or wheeling it with them in a wooden cart, were sent into the
streets to earn money by singing at the doors of cafes and estaminets.
A musical amateur, one M. Morin, noticed the girls, questioned them,
interested himself about them, and finally obtained their admission
into the Government School of Sacred Music in the Rue Vaugirard.
Rachel's v